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A camera positioned opposite Australia
House on The Strand in London, captures Australian troops on
parade for Anzac Day, 1919. The vast number of Australian troops is some indication of the scale of Australia's contribution to the war effort.

The
Prince
of Wales (later King Edward VIII) stands on the raised platform, taking the
salute. With him are Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig to the right and HRH
Prince Albert (later King George VI) further back, next to Lieutenant General
Sir William R Birdwood (left). Also featured on the stand are Billy Hughes (Prime
Minister of Australia); Andrew Fisher (Australian High Commissioner to the
United Kingdom); Sir Thomas McKenzie (New Zealand High Commissioner to the
United Kingdom); Sir Joseph Cook and Senator Pearce (the Australian Minister
for Defence).

The parade ends with Australian and New Zealand troops and British citizens
pushing forward and mobbing the Prince of Wales with three cheers!

Otago Boys’ High School celebrated its
Diamond Jubilee in August 1923 – the 75th anniversary was a huge celebration
over several days. Activities included rugby matches, a parade, a ball and, most
importantly, the dedication of the memorial gates commemorating ex-pupils who
fought and died in World War One.

The Otago Daily Times reported that
the “school gave freely of her best sons in that great conflict, and of these
nearly 200 are numbered with ‘the unreturning brave’. It was fitting,
therefore, that first of all the functions at this Diamond Jubilee should be
the dedication of the beautiful memorial archway, which records in letters of
brass the glorious roll call of those who thus gave their all”.

Watch as the Mayor, Mr HL Tapley and
officials lead a parade of guests through the archway and into the college
grounds, cadets then form a guard of honour and the flag blows patriotically! A
parade of cadets march into the school.

London – 3 May 1919 – crowds gather outside
Buckingham Palace in London for an investiture by his Majesty King George V. Among the
nurses and soldiers receiving awards and honours is a smartly dressed New
Zealand officer in his lemon squeezer hat.

On the dais are Queen Mary and members of
the royal household. In front stand Field Marshall Sir Douglas Haig and his
Generals – Plumer and Sir William Birdwood. Winston Churchill, then Secretary
of State for War, stands proudly in morning suit and top hat.

After the ceremony, the New Zealand
Expeditionary Force (NZEF) Depot Band march past, followed by the New Zealand
Parade Commander. Behind them are the New Zealand Field Artillery – note the
infantry with their rifles and bayonets. Next, the Australian Imperial Force
(AIF) march past. Mounted officers of the AIF and the Australian Light Horse
trot by, and the crowd cheers and waves, then the AIF band march past – they
are marching easy – and are followed by the Australian infantry.

Savvy theatre operators were quick to
recognise the power of the local when it came to filling the house. Many cinemas
employed cameramen to record local events, rapidly processed the films, which were then on the cinema screen within days – and people flocked to see themselves.

In this case O’Brien’s Empire Theatre,
Dunedin’s De Luxe Picture House, filmed the 1921 Anzac Day Parade (25 April) and the
unveiling of the North East Valley Memorial. By 28 April the Otago Daily
Times carried the advertisement “Special Announcement Re Anzac Day.
Pictures of the unveiling, the wreaths, the children, the parade of Anzacs, the
councillors and the crowds etc would be shown that night at O’Brien’s”.

This was a remarkable achievement when you
consider the necessary developing, printing, processing, editing and delivery
that had to occur to make these events happen so quickly.

In April 1938, several
thousand New Zealand “diggers” sailed from Wellington for Sydney, where they reunited with their Australian “cobbers” of 1914 – 1918 in a grand Anzac
Day procession through the city.

The huge march from
the Cenotaph to the Domain, where a commemoration service was held, was part of
Australia’s 150th anniversary celebrations and some 50,000 returned servicemen
took part – with an estimated half a million people lining the Sydney
streets.

In this live radio broadcast from the Wellington
waterfront, Station 2ZB announcers – who were veterans themselves – capture the
cheering, bands and excitement on the docks. New Zealand Prime Minister Michael
Joseph Savage farewells the old soldiers as they board former World War One troopships
– ‘the Monowai’ and ‘the Maunganui’ – for the trip across the
Tasman.

Following an ANZAC Day ceremony at the Cenotaph
in Queen's Garden, Dunedin, hundreds of veterans march down Princes Street. The
sheer number of marchers reflects the fact that the Otago and Southland regions
provided the largest number of soldiers for the New Zealand Expeditionary Force (NZEF) per
head of population. On parade are the 4th Otago Hussars; the 5th
Otago Mounted Rifles and marines from a Royal Navy ship. The Battalion Band is
followed by officers on horseback and soldiers of the Territorial Regiment.
Each company is led by the company commander on horseback, all of whom wear
medal ribbons indicating they are World War One veterans.

In 1912, Sir Thomas
Mackenzie, former Prime Minister, was appointed as the New Zealand High
Commissioner to London; a post he held until 1920. Mackenzie was particularly
concerned about the treatment of New Zealand soldiers and made several visits
to see the troops during the war.

In this clip,
Mackenzie, with his back to the camera, talks to New Zealanders outside the 2nd
New Zealand Field Ambulance station.

During his visit,
Mackenzie also joined the 2nd Otago church parade, inspected the New
Zealand Engineers and made an address to the 3rd Otago Battalion. At
the end of Mackenzie’s visit Major General Sir Andrew Russell noted in his
diary: "The whole visit has been successful, fine weather – just enough
speechifying but not too much”.

King
George V inspects 7,000 New Zealand troops at Bulford Field on 1 May 1917. New
Zealand’s high command did not miss the opportunity and also present were
Generals, Brigadiers, the Prime Minister William Massey, Joseph Ward – Leader
of the Opposition and their wives and daughters and other dignitaries.

The
7,000 New Zealand troops on parade included: 4,000 from 4th Brigade;
1,500 from Sling Camp; 1,000 from Codford Command along with Engineers, ASC,
Cadets and a few mounted rifles. After inspecting the troops, the King took the
march-past and presented medals.

People went to cinemas during the war to be entertained, but moving-pictures also played an important role in providing cinema-goers with
news and information from abroad. Early newsreels, or topical films, were an
important part of the typical cinema programme of the time.

This
film is an example of a full-length Pathé Animated Gazette newsreel that was shown during the war. It demonstrates
the contents of these types of films and how they mixed serious topics with
more light-hearted footage: scenes of the Algerian Native Cavalry in Flanders, a
brief glimpse of King George V and Queen Mary making their way through packed
London Streets to a service at St Paul’s Cathedral, the opening of a New
Zealand military hospital, and Zouaves (Algerian French Infantry).

The experience of the cinema-going public remains perhaps the most challenging
aspect of understanding film and audiences in New Zealand and Australia during
the Great War. This image, taken circa 1910 in an unknown New Zealand cinema,
is a rare glimpse back at a packed house.

This newsreel shows the then prosperous and bustling mining town of Burra, or the collection of townships known as ‘The Burra’, celebrating Australia Day on July the 30th, predating
the now national celebration held on 26 January. At that time there was no nationally
recognised national day, instead they usually were based around each state’s
date of significance for the founding of the colony.

Sling Camp on the Salisbury Plains of England was home to four or five thousand New Zealand soldiers at any
one time, from 1916 until after the end of the war. It was staffed by New
Zealand officers, with the exception of physical instructors whose job it was
to get the ‘colonials’ into fighting shape. These men were veteran sergeant-majors
of the regular British Army and their territory was the training ground known
as ‘The Bull Ring.’ In a 1964 radio
interview, Jack Archibald of Nelson recalled the grim conditions he faced there
in the harsh winter of 1917.

The Victoria College Officers’ Training Corps was formed in Wellington in 1910. It
was established partly by the need to train a new generation of officers to
lead and fight in the New Zealand militia. Charles Treadwell was an original
member of the Corps and in this talk he recalls its founding, the different
forms that their training took, and the men he served with.

In April 1916, a year after the Anzac landings at Gallipoli, the first anniversary of the battle was observed in
Australia, New Zealand and Britain. A grand memorial service was held at
Westminster Abbey in London, attended by King George V and Queen Mary. Hundreds
of New Zealand and Australian military personnel marched through the streets to
the Abbey to attend the service.

Among them was Sydney-born Dr Agnes
Bennett, who had been working in Egyptian hospitals treating the wounded from
Gallipoli. Some 40 years later she recalled the experience in this excerpt from
a radio ‘talk.’

On 15 July 1915 the transport ship Willochra brought the first group of men wounded in the Gallipoli campaign back to a civic reception in Wellington.
Seeing the bandaged and traumatised men paraded in the city’s Town Hall made a
big impact on young Max Riske, who was taken to the reception by his mother. Sixty years later, he
vividly recalled how the experience changed opinions about the war for him and
many other Wellingtonians.

In November 1914 the annual London Lord Mayor’s Show took on a very military flavour, with thousands of troops from
Britain and her allies marching through the streets. They included a group of
150 New Zealanders, part of a contingent of 200 who were living in Britain when
war was declared.

As this tiny fragment of film from 1914 shows,
the New Zealanders were still wearing the ‘slouch’ hat with the upturned brim
which New Zealanders had worn in the South African War. Later in the war this would be replaced by
the peaked ‘lemon squeezer’.

Captain Pirimi Tahiwi of Te Hokowhitu a Tū, the Māori Battalion, describes how he and Captain Roger Dansey led a charge on Sari Bair, Gallipoli in 1915. Te
Rauparaha’s famous war cry “Ka Mate, Ka Mate” rang out as they cleared the
Turkish trenches. Tahiwi says there was no need to use the bayonet as the
Turkish troops fled for their lives.He was wounded in the neck and evacuated to
England to convalesce. After an outstanding military career he attended the
50th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings as the sole surviving officer to
serve in Te Hokowhitu a Tū, the Māori Pioneer Battalion. Tahiwi laid a mere pounamu, a
symbol of both peace and war, on the memorial at Chunuk Bair.

In late 1914 the New Zealand and Australian forces were diverted from their
original destination of England to Egypt. There they combined to form the ANZAC
Corps that would eventually fight in the Gallipoli campaign. This film shows an
activity that became a routine part of soldiers’ life - the troop inspection.

As well as the blazing Egyptian heat, the ANZAC troops had another menace to
contend with – dust. Herbert Hart wrote in his diary “[t]he sand is worked into
such fine dust near camp, that it now flies everywhere whenever the troops move
over it. We had dust in our ears, eyes, mouth, nose and everywhere, it fell
from our puggarees [cloth wrapped around the regulation sun helmets], pouches,
pockets, putties [long cloth strips wrapped around the calves] or from all our
clothes.”

This film was made during the New Zealand convoy’s 1915 journey from Wellington to Egypt, via Hobart and Colombo. On long
voyages like this, an especially popular way for soldiers to spend their free
time was watching wrestling bouts. Here the crowd watches intently as two
soldiers, possibly former professional wrestlers, come to grips on the deck of
the troopship. This appears to be a “worked”, or staged, bout, rather than a
genuine contest. Gambling was prohibited on board troopships, but it seems highly likely
that money changed hands on this occasion.

In the war years, home movie-making in New Zealand was a rare event. Intimate scenes like the ones shown in this film are
even rarer. We believe that this is Rob Millington, who is pictured having tea at his home in Wellington in
1916, with his fiancée Daisy and their cat. Millington was a camera operator employed
by Henry Hayward. Soon after this film was
made Millington signed up to serve with the merchant navy as a wireless operator; he was killed in November 1917 when the ship he was serving on, the Aparima, was sunk by a German torpedo. The name of the older soldier shown toward the end of the film is
unknown. He may be a relative of the Hayward or Fuller families, who were both prominent
NZ cinema-owning families.

This film is an uncommon portrait of an individual soldier at a time when only large
bodies of men were usually shown on screen.

During WW1, those at home were encouraged to support the men at the front by donating
money or goods to the war effort. Colin Franklin-Browne recalls watching fundraising
parades and penny trails (lines of coins which the public were encouraged to
add to) on Wellington’s streets in 1914-15. He also remembers the dark side of
this patriotic fervor. Women’s patriotic groups sent white feathers, symbols of
cowardice, to men who had not enlisted. The women targeted pacifists, men not yet in uniform and
even those unable to enlist for medical reasons.

In the first months after Australia entered the war, the public mood was wildly
enthusiastic and patriotic. That mood is evident in this clip, showing cheering
crowds gathered to support a military parade as AIF troops depart on the
troopship A2 Geelong. The
ship can be briefly glimpsed departing at the end of this film.

By 1914 Australian horsemen had proved themselves as expert rough-riders and good shots in wartime.
Untrained colonial cavalry had distinguished themselves in the Boer War, and
Australia had 23 regiments of volunteer cavalry at the outbreak of WW1. Many
men from these regiments joined the Light Horse Regiments of the Australian
Imperial Force (AIF). Some are seen here in training with their horses, and in
a military parade. Troops are also shown departing on the troopship A2 Geelong, farewelled by a huge crowd
as the ship leaves the dock.

It was the most spectacular parade that the South Island town of Nelson had ever seen.
Daffodil Week, a fundraising campaign to provide comforts to troops serving
overseas, took place in September 1916, and the highlight was the grand parade
and crowning of the Flower Queen. The streets were decorated with flags and
from early morning children were selling buttonholes (small posies of flowers),
while stallholders sold cut flowers, ferns, plants, seedlings, sweets and
produce.

In this short film the
impact of World War One is evident. The floats and organizations are marshalled by
uniformed soldiers, and the streets are lined with members of the local
Territorial infantry battalion. The Rt. Rev. William Sadlier, the Bishop of Nelson, can
be seen in a frock-coat in the crowd. The annual Flower Queen, elected by
popular vote, was Miss Hazel Win. Altogether £780 (or NZ$100,000 today) was raised for Christmas presents for the boys at the front.

From a sheepdog trial to a costume parade in support of the French Red Cross – the weekly Australian Gazette newsreel captured a slice of Australian life through the war years.

This example from mid-1915 starts with a sheepdog trial at a showground, followed by shots of the British barque Inverness-Shire, dismasted by wild weather off the coast of Tasmania. The third segment (unfortunately damaged by deterioration of the nitrate film) records a parade heading down Collins St in Melbourne in aid of the French Red Cross. The clip ends with the mammoth funeral procession in Sydney for the great Australian batsman Victor Trumper.

After six weeks in training camp, the Auckland section of the Main Body of the NZEF was reviewed by Minister of Defence James
Allen at Auckland’s Alexandra Park on 19 September 1914. This film shows the
men of the Auckland Infantry Regiment, the Mounted Rifles, the Motorcycle Corps
and and the Field Ambulance, in full battle equipment. Watch out for the dogs
who also take starring roles, running in and out of shot. Films of this period
often show dogs accompanying New Zealand troops, both at home and overseas.